Dogs in Heat
by Zhou-Mak
Summary: Temari's still got her secret, and it's trying to force it's way out, but she's not too sure about it. Someone else is after Kiba's heart! Oh, no, the Suna Kunoichi has her work cut out for her. KibaTemari...KibaOC? Only the author knows for sure.
1. Fanning the Flames

NARUTO: DOGS IN HEAT

CHAPTER ONE: FANNING THE FLAMES

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Temari had a secret. It's not really all that surprising, many of us do. But for her, it is a painful secret, one that she must keep hidden and suppressed from the world. In fact, she does such a fine job that even she may not know to what extent she's keeping it hidden.

Like other young ladies with odd hairstyles (and most of us can agree that many of the ladies in the Narutoverse have odd hairstyles), Temari got up rather early to fix her hair. She kept a strict schedule, bed at ten, awake at five-thirty to bathe and begin the ponytail process. It was a long and arduous task, taking much of the morning, aggravating to no end for both her brothers, Kankuro in particular.

"Freakin' a, Temari, what's taking so long!" the cat-eared puppeteer bellowed through the Kazekage's mansion.

"Just wait a minute, Kankuro! I'm almost done," Temari retorted, running down the stairs, just managing to grab her fan from the umbrella basket by the front door. Funny story behind that thing, one time when they bought an apartment in Konoha, one of the house-warming presents was an umbrella stand. When the siblings decided not to stay in Konoha after Gaara's ascension to Kazekage, they brought the stand with them because it was theirs. After ages of trying to figure out what to put in it, Temari slipped in her fan and kept it there ever since.

They got out the front door without any more shouting, much to Gaara's joy. Kankuro asked, "So Gaara, what are we doing in Konoha again?"

Irritated, Temari replied, "C'mon Kankuro, we talked about it last night. Konoha is having a festival to commerate the sealing of the Fox demon and they sent an invitation to us. Gaara is also going to ask about an alliance against Orochimaru. Good gracious, you're so careless. It's a wonder what'd you do without me here to keep you straight."

That statement is probably the closest thing Temari has ever come to understanding her secret. Temari has always wanted to go wild. She has wanted to run free, not caring about the consequences since she was a child. In fact, before Gaara was born, Temari was quite the wild child, but then Gaara came along, and she had to shape up to help keep his crazyness in line. She grew up very quickly in the savage royal family of the Kazekage. Subconsciously, she always resented her youngest brother, especially for getting the honor of being Kazekage; after all, he forced her to grow up, get all straight laced and sharp cornered and she had nothing to show for it. But she would never admit this to herself. In fact, she often acted the exact opposite of what she desired. She buried it so deep underneath the underneath, that Ibiki Morino would have a hell of a time getting it out of her.

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Kiba Inuzuka was an interesting person. In a team made of Hinata, Shino, and himself, Kiba was the one keeping things interesting. If team 8 was a caricature of team 7, then Kiba was Naruto. In fact, Kiba wishes he was Naruto, then Hinata would like him, as opposed to tolerate him. It bugged Kiba to no end. How could the Hyugga heiress like such a social retard? _Oh well, maybe that nice girl at the reception desk would like to go to a movie._ Kiba was roused from his reverie by Kurenai appearing before him.

"Hello Akamaru!" Kurenai virtually squealed. Kiba's face grimaced. Don't be mistaken, Kiba loved Akamaru to death, the wonderful dog, but it also aggravated him to no end that Akamaru could get more ladies than Kiba just by existing. Oh well, Kiba supposed that he could use it to his advantage.

"What is it Kurenai-sensei? And where are Shino and Hinata?" Kiba was used to his team waiting for him at the gate of the Inuzuka complex, but this time, there was no one.

"Well, Hokage-sama gave the team the day off." At this point, Kiba jumped into the air and shouted, "Yes! Day off! I'm gonna ask that cute receptionist to a movie! Thanks Kurenai-sensei!"

"Well, don't thank me yet, Kiba. After I notified Hinata and Shino, Shizune contacted me and said that there was one mission that still needed done. So you got volunteered."

"What?! You just told me that I had a day off! What's the Hokage need me to do?" Kiba knew that going against the Hokage was all but impossible for every ninja in all of Konoha. Except one,_ Stupid Naruto. He has Hinata trying for him, Hokage-sama likes him, he's even been trained by one of the Legendary Sannin! What's he got that I don't?_ Too bad Sandaime's Law prevents us from letting him know, eh?

"Shizune gave me this scroll with the mission specs, so here you go. I'm going to be at home enjoying my day off, so…See ya Kiba!" Kurenai ran off, jumped on a roof and hurried to her apartment, leaving Kiba alone and pissed off. Kiba opened the scroll and checked his mission out.

**_By the Order of Hokage:_**

_**To whomever has received this message: Your assignment is to **_

**_escort the Kazekage and his entourage around Konoha._**

_**Let them see more of the town than the Hokage's tower and their**_

_**hotel rooms. They deserve a good time, especially just before the **_

_**festival. This is a D rank mission and will pay according to the **_

**_reply of the Kazekage and his escorts upon their arrival at the _**

_**Hokage's tower at 7:30 this evening. Good luck!**_

_**Tsunade**_

_No way. A freakin' escort mission. I hate these _(don't we all)_. Ya know, I haven't seen Gaara for awhile now. Wonder how he's doing. I wonder if he brought his sister? She might want to see a movie with me. She might want to castrate me with her fan too. Couldn't hurt to ask_, thought Kiba as he looked over his mission scroll. He attempted to plan a day of walking around Konoha, but he couldn't get a reasonable schedule in his head, so he decided to go guided by his best feature: his instinct.

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He was waiting at the gates for the Suna ninjas to arrive. It was nerve-wracking for poor Kiba, after all this was the legendary Gaara of the Desert. The name and mental image of Shukaku awoke a primal fear in Kiba, but one that he conquered…well, he had it conquered when Gaara wasn't around.

"Well, hello, what was your name again?" asked Gaara, following Temari's suggestion that he act more hospitable during the trip.

Kiba yelped slightly when Gaara started talking behind him. Kankuro tried to hold in his laughter. Temari also tried to hold in her response, but as opposed to Kankuro's laughter, she was holding in disgust. After all, they had been assured that someone who knew the town would be showing them around it, instead they got a smelly, dirty dog boy. Temari externally looked disgusted to see him, but her inner Temari, weak, small, and emaciated from abuse and neglect, looked up with hope in her eyes.

Kiba turned around and stiffly offered his hand to Gaara, eyes shut tight making the red fang marks on his face curl around his eyes. Kiba felt his hand enveloped in another and tried to shake, finding inhuman resistance, he opened his eyes to a squint.

His hand was encapsulated in sand. Kiba couldn't think, in fact, he simply stopped thinking on a conscious level and blurted out whatever was on his mind. Interestingly enough, what was on his mind turned out to be, "Pleased to re-meet you Kazekage-sama. I am also pleased to make the acquaintance of your siblings, Kankuro the Puppeteer and Temari, Lily of the Desert. I am a humble shinobi of Konoha, please call me Inuzuka Kiba."

Gaara showed absolutely no expression on his face, but what he was feeling was known by his relinquishing the control for his sand shackles, which promptly dropped back into normal sand on the ground. Kankuro's eyes opened wide and he almost dropped Krow. Temari was the one that recovered quickest, "Very pleased to meet you Kiba. However Temari-san would be more than sufficient to address me. Are we to assume that you are the one that is to give us a grand tour of Konoha during a festival?"

Kiba got his hand away from the sand as soon as it loosened, too bad for him, he also got back his attitude, "Yep, that's me. I'll be taking all of you around, so's there any place you guys wanna go to first?"

Kiba was quickly and immediately clocked upside the head with a large metal fan. He finally registered who hit him, and possibly because he had brain damage, he took extra notice of her. She stood about six inches or so taller than he did, her sandy blond hair had managed to maintain a semblance of darkness even through the natural lightening of the desert sun from home. Speaking of that desert sun, it also graced her with a well tanned figure, instantly separating her from the inhabitants of Konoha and making her appear even more exotic. She was dressed in a one piece dress that went from her ankles to the top of her neck, several colors danced across it, reds, yellows, oranges, and even some purple at the edges, making it look as though she was wearing the sunset. Her beauty captured him and all he could do was drool.

Temari probably would have decapitated him with her fan, if it weren't for Akamaru. There was never a time in his life when Kiba was happier that Akamaru occasionally stole attention from his master. "Oh, it's such a cute puppy." Temari bent over to scratch Akamaru's belly. Kiba actually stayed on the ground for a few seconds to admire Temari's rump. At least, he would have, if Kankuro hadn't hoisted him up and gotten the group back on track.

"Well, you gonna show us around the town or are you gonna watch Temari pat your puppy all day? We've got stuff to do, including a meeting at seven tonight. It's already ten in the morning, so we've got nine hours to get around. Get moving!"

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The next chapter is one in which…things get troublesome, Temari finds some things to her liking, and Kiba turns down a very nice offer.


	2. 2 Let it Simmer

NARUTO: DOGS IN HEAT

CHAPTER TWO: LET IT SIMMER

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Last time, on Naruto, Dogs in Heat…

Kankuro hoisted Kiba off of the ground and said, in an unnecessarily rough voice, "Well, you gonna show us around the town or are you gonna watch Temari pat your puppy all day? We've got stuff to do, including a meeting at seven tonight. It's already ten in the morning, so we've got nine hours to get around. Get moving!"

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Temari picked Akamaru up off of the ground and looked back at Kankuro. She held the dog in her arms as she crossed them over her chest, Akamaru's feet dangling below her arms. "Kankuro, the meeting's at seven thirty. We still have to get ready and showing up so late would be disrespectful."

Kankuro, without dropping Kiba, replied in a much softer manner, "I gave us time to prepare. I didn't think that the Hokage would like us to appear disheveled after the day of fun this twit's supposed to give us. Right?"

Temari's eye twitched. "What do you mean? You think all of us can prepare in a half hour? Not including the time we need to check in our hotel, unpack all our stuff and get dressed in our fancy clothes. What's so hard about that?"

Kankuro winced during Temari's scalding rebuttal, and then glared at Kiba, displacing all the rage he wanted to give to Temari. While glaring, Kankuro ordered, "So, since Temari has to fix her hair, you'll only get four hours to show us around. Better hurry." Kankuro dropped Kiba and moved in an attempt to avoid Temari's fan. He succeeded, sorta. Instead of Temari bonking him on his head, she got his foot. "AHHH! Temari! That hurt! What the hell!"

"Well, Kankuro, if you hadn't moved, then it wouldn't have hit your foot. Would it?" Temari looked over at Kankuro with what appeared to be a sisterly grin on her face, but like anyone who knows Temari would say, was actually a smirk of victory. Kiba thought to himself, _Wow, she's cold. I'm glad she didn't get me with that. I guess I had better get started on the tour so I don't get another beating._

"That's enough pain and torture for one morning, right? How about we go on that little tour I'm supposed to give you guys? Do you have a hotel you usually use that we should go to first or do you still need to find one?" inquired Kiba as he tenderly walked in front of Temari past the gates into Konoha.

Temari replied that they would need to find a hotel, so Kiba started off. After a little while, Kiba snapped his fingers, nothing really happened except Temari glared so hard that if Kiba had been looking, he probably would have tried to crawl into Gaara's gourd for safety. (Yeah, Gaara's gourd. For safety. That's how freakin' mean she glared.) When Kiba noticed that his favorite buddy wasn't walking next to him, he whistled. Kankuro looked at Gaara. Gaara looked ahead. Kankuro wondered what's up with all the weird Konoha ninja, last time he was here, he saw Lee running around screeching about the flames of youth. So suffice it to say, he wasn't entirely caught off guard, but it was a tad disconcerting.

Gaara was only thinking about the mounds of paperwork he would be missing out on doing while he was here. Gaara liked his paperwork; he also liked meeting people in his office. Gaara was happy that he didn't have to kill anybody anymore, because any use of the power that once belonged to Shukaku has the potential to drive him into an uncontrollable bloodlust. But he didn't give that opportunity time to present itself.

Temari was incensed. _That conceited prick! He walks off and tries to snap us to get into line! The audacity! Then he has the nerve to whistle like we're some of his dogs that won't heel! As soon as we get to speak with Tsunade, I'm going to give her a piece of my mind!_ Throughout her mental tirade, she never noticed Akamaru trying to break free from her grasp. In fact, she didn't notice until she saw Kiba turn around and stick out his hand, as though he was trying to cop a feel on her breasts. _Oh, now he's gonna get it!_ She reached around her back for her fan to decapitate the puppy-wielding shinobi, she brought it around and swung it with all her might.

When she saw Kiba's body kneel on the ground, she started to go into shock.

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Kiba snapped his fingers; Akamaru didn't come. Kiba whistled; Akamaru didn't come. So Kiba turned around and looked for him. _No wonder he didn't come when I called, he's surrounded by her cleavage. Little bugger, I was glad for the distraction, but this is too much._ Kiba reached forward to pluck Akamaru from Temari, utterly oblivious to his impending doom. Then she dropped Akamaru, Kiba bent over to catch him, but didn't quite make it before Akamaru landed roughly on the ground, so then, Kiba kneeled over to pick him up. All of this was done so that Temari's fan swing went silently over his head. Kiba felt the wind pass over him, suddenly very glad that he bent over to pick up Akamaru.

Temari could only look on in horror; she had murdered another ninja just because he was going towards her, hand out. _Oh, good gracious. He was probably just reaching for his dog and I killed him. I'm a horrible person and WHY IS KANKURO LAUGHING?!_ It's true, Kankuro was laughing his purple butt off. It seemed that he found pleasure from killing other people. _I thought if anyone was going to laugh, it would be Gaara_, thought Temari as she prepared to beat Kankuro as well. Then she heard it.

"I'm glad you missed Temari-chan. That would have hurt. A lot," said Kiba as he got up. Now, Temari knew what happened. Kiba dodged her fan by bending over to pick up his dog. Sneaky bastard.

"Hey, don't scare me like that, and do you have any idea how to ask? Huh? You looked like you were trying to feel me up!" Temari saw Kiba's ears twitch, he heard something. Temari stopped to listen as well and she caught a faint sound. She looked around and saw what it was.

Gaara was chuckling. It wasn't a big sound, but it was definitely there. He actually had a half-smile on his face, which meant that he was probably cracking up on the normal emotional scale. Temari felt her embarrassment and anger melt away at the sound. _Wow, he's becoming more and more normal every day, except for his paperwork obsession. Heh, heh, ha ha ha._ Gaara's laugh was infectious, soon Kankuro, Kiba and Temari were all chuckling with him, and if anyone had looked at them, he'd have thought they were crazy.

"Okay guys, that was entertaining, but I've got a job to do, and it's not getting any earlier. So, follow me! There's a really good hotel downtown. We'll head there first."

The Suna Siblings and Kiba veritably marched downtown, stopping in front of a rather large hotel that would be right in the middle of the festival. Temari had some reservations about the noise, but was drowned out by Kankuro demanding the penthouse suite. He claimed, "It's far enough away from the streets to be quiet. And there will be plenty of room." Not wanting to know why he needed plenty of room, Temari hesitantly agreed.

They got everything unpacked, and by then it was lunch time. Kiba took them to a nice enough BBQ place. It was a buffet-type restaurant. Kiba came here for two reasons: it was cheap for four, and Chouji recommended it. That was the last time he trusted Chouji. Gaara was the only respectable person at the table. Kankuro was eating with a frenzy that Chouji would find appalling. At least Chouji stopped to taste, chew, and ingest his food. Kankuro just inhaled it. Temari tried to keep her cool, but kept berating Kiba for taking the Kazekage to a barbeque. It was humiliating. But she liked the food, not that she would tell anyone, though. She also liked the atmosphere, except for Kankuro. But that didn't mean that Kiba was forgiven.

Afterwards, Kiba took them to the market section for a quick tour of the shops in Konoha. As soon as they got there, Kankuro dragged Gaara off into some secluded section of the store. Temari looked at the shops laid out before her, and turned around.

"Hey, where did Kankuro and Gaara go?" she asked, though she didn't actually expect them to be there. Kiba groaned, he may have been a dunce, but he knew exactly what she was going to ask of him.

"Well, since it's just you. Can you help me pick out clothes?" Kiba opened his mouth and was about to say something; a similar effect could have been achieved by just putting his foot into it, but he never got the chance. Temari decided to speak up again, "Besides, you can't simply leave the Kazekage's sister alone in Konoha by herself, can you? That would be against your mission." Kiba groaned, if he was Shikamaru, he would have convinced her to find her brothers, if he was Naruto, he would have created a Kage Bunshin, if he was Shino, he wouldn't have said anything until she decided to find her brothers herself. But poor Kiba wasn't any of them, he was Kiba. So he was stuck helping her with her shopping. Which actually wasn't all that bad.

She went to the weapon shop first, and restocked. Then she went into a couple of clothing stores, not the frilly, girly kind of stores, Kiba thought, the cool ones where he would have shopped if he did. His sister usually went and did that sort of thing. Granted, sometimes she would buy him something 'cute,' in which case he knew that the only thing he could do was shrink it in the wash to a size that the only living thing that could wear it was Akamaru. That was the only response.

Regardless, his sister's taste in clothes wasn't the issue, the issue was that Temari was showing him a very nice bathing suit and Kiba was having difficulty trying not to blush like Hinata in a Naruto mosh pit.

Luckily (for Kiba, anyway), Kankuro and Gaara showed up before he could embarrass himself to death. Upon seeing Temari's state of (un)dress, the Suna brothers reprimanded her and told her to get back in her normal attire. Okay, we all know that her brothers couldn't force Temari to do anything. Instead, Kankuro began to shout, got glared down, and made a comment to Gaara about how Kiba was staring. Gaara whipped his neck to look at Kiba, who, true to Kankuro's word, was staring at Temari. Quickly, Temari was covered in sand up to her neck and pushed back into the booth.

Kiba saw the sand coming for him, he knew he would die. He didn't even get to talk to Temari about why she was doing that sort of thing to him. It wasn't exactly everyday that the sister of a dignitary pranced around in front of you wearing so little, in fact, if Kiba didn't know any better, he'd think that she was seducing him. But that was a thought for later, provide that there would be a later. Laters are a luxury, especially when one happens to be standing neck-deep in lethal sand.

Gaara never really did strike people as a caring person. His eyes were always cold, and his voice had two speeds, monotone and maniacal. His tattoo may have been 'love,' but he never really got much of a chance to understand it. Some have guessed that Gaara's problem isn't exactly all that uncommon, except that Gaara took it to an extreme. They blamed his crankiness and general psychosis on his inability to sleep.

Several people have asked about the dark rings around Gaara's eyes. The reason that those people are given as to why the particular facial markings exist, is because Gaara is the container of the Shukaku. Shukaku is a demon raccoon that controls sand. Yeah, I thought it was funny too, but more importantly, the Shukaku is a very malicious demon. In fact, Shukaku hates Gaara, it makes sense. After all, if you were poorly sealed in some kid's forehead, you'd likely be pissed too. So whenever Gaara tried to sleep, Shukaku would eat his soul, slowly.

Akatsuki, once they captured Gaara, removed the sand raccoon. The removal of Shukaku allowed him to finally get some sleep. It turns out that Gaara was suffering from **_very_** severe sleep deprivation. After about a week solid of sleeping, he was beginning to feel more human, but he felt that the image of an emotionless killer would best serve him as leader of all of Sunakagure.

Gaara was more than prepared to kill Kiba. Nobody, and I mean, nobody looked at his sister like that, especially not if they were a second-rate, hairy, smelly, loud, annoying ninja. Heck, even Shikamaru was only two of those. So Gaara squeezed his sand a little more, restraining Kiba's airflow, and allowing Gaara to get his point across to the mutt ninja. At this point, if Gaara was looking like Kankuro was, he would have noticed Kiba's eyes glaze over, and his demeanor change. Kankuro noticed Kiba's eyes get all fuzzy, like he was dying, and was trying to tell Gaara not to kill the poor schmuck, Kiba spoke up.

"Many pardons, Kazekage-sama I meant no disrespect to your position, either as the lord of Sunagakure, or as Temari's brother, regretfully, that does not excuse my actions towards her. It is true that she was the one who approached me wearing that particular revealing outfit, it was still my decision to gaze upon her form. You and your esteemed brother have my deepest apologizes, I can only hope that you both and Temari will forgive me this extreme trangresson." Then Kiba fainted and his head hit the floor. Kiba's head hit the floor, because Gaara had removed the sand from around the ninja about halfway into the speech.

Kankuro picked up Kiba and said to Gaara, "Did you see his eyes just before he started that speech? They got all unfocused and weird." It was at that moment that Temari finally opened the curtain from the dressing room.

"What did you do to him? I was asking him his opinion about this swimsuit! Geez, do you guys have to do this everytime?" Temari had her hands on her hips, looking very much like the sister of an overprotective brother exasperating about how another one of her guys was scared away. "He was our tour guide. How could you guys have forgotten? Honestly, I don't know what to do with you guys anymore. We need to wake him up."

After about twenty minutes of trying, the Sand Sibs finally managed to awaken the Inuzuka-clan head. The first thing he did when he returned to the world of the living, was ask why he wasn't dead.

"Because we're still on the tour, after that, who knows?" Kankuro had decided to answer. Kiba swallowed and decided to push on, finally getting the briefly interrupted tour underway. Later, once things had quieted down, Temari managed to catch Kiba alone, much to the male ninja's suspicions.

"Hey, Kiba, sorry about whatever Gaara and Kankuro did to you. I was just hoping that you'd give me your thoughts on what I was wearing. That was all. Gaara and Kankuro are just too overprotective, since they think they've grown up it's like they suddenly act as co-fathers. I'm been watching over them and they think they can just start taking over for me, like I can't even live my own life." Temari's mood changed from apologetic to angred in the space of not even a minute. If Kiba wasn't so interested in what she was saying, he might have just let it go.

Kiba looked at her, questions hiding behind his eyes, and said, "But that's not it. What else is there?"

She looked at him, and was at a loss for words. How could she have hoped to say, _I don't know what it is, but you bring it out? _What way could she convey, _I like myself more when I'm around you, but I'm afraid of this new me? _Was it really right to try and explain these epiphanies to this boy she really didn't know before today? She didn't know then, but she resolved to tell him later. Temari only piqued up when she heard her name.

"Hey, Temari? You awake? There's still a little bit of tour to go on, and I'll bet that Gaara and Kankuro are getting antsy." Kiba wanted to press the point, to spearhead an exploration into Temari's little issue, but that voice in the back of his mind told him that Temari wasn't Hinata. She was the opposite, while Hinata looked fragile, she had a strong mind, and more than once Kiba had to pound a point home, waiting for her to finally see the truth. Temari looked strong, but her mind was weakening, becoming brittle, strong and firm, but easy to shatter. Kiba had to tread lightly, and his new mental friend was helping. Kiba didn't know what this was, but he never noticed it until recently.

Temari may have been a brittle young lady, but direct and guile-less she wasn't. She knew that Kiba brought out something in her, and she really wanted to know more about it, so she did something that the etiquette books would never allow. She leaned over towards Kiba, and asked, "Hey, would you like to go to the festival with me, just after the meeting?"

_Wow, that was bold…and very refreshing, _thought Kiba. He wasn't used to something like this, a pretty young lady asking him out for a change. He was almost always the one to take the plunge first, and it usually ended up with him on the rocks, but this was something he had absolutely no experience at. So, like he did with most everything (excepting the more recent activities, but he needn't know that), he said what came naturally, "Sure, I'd love to go to the festival with you. Do you know when the meeting will be finished?" _Hn,_ thought Kiba, _That was surprisingly eloquent. Wait, I'm thinking like that? Today is definitely an interesting day. I'm going to have to speak with my sister about this._

The rest of the tour went by rather well, except when Kiba got tackled by a very large dog, whom he then spent several minutes 'barking' with before it left. He rubbed the back of his head and finally led the Sand Siblings back to their hotel. Temari waited just a minute after Gaara and Kankuro went in. "Hey, Kiba!" she shouted to him.

"Yeah, what's up?"

Temari blushed, just slightly, _Why do I feel like I'm seven again?_ "There's supposed to be a dance on one of the floors of the Hokage monument, do you think you could wait for me there?"

Kiba looked at her, tried to imagine her in a dress, and thought that to miss it would--. He paused, finally got his thoughts straight, and said, "To miss it would make any man a fool. Of course I'll wait Temari." Kiba did a small bow, then stood up, turned on his heel, and walked off until he stopped thinking about exactly when in his entire life he had ever said something as…whatever that was. _Oh well, no time to ponder on that, I've got to meet sis._

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After finally ending the hectic day of leading the Suna Siblings around Konoha, Kiba started off to the veterinary clinic the Inuzuka clan owned. His reasons for being there were twofold, first to see what his sister wanted, as one of her dogs contacted him during his mission mentioning that she wanted to see him once he was done, and…true to his baser instincts, he wanted to talk to the cute receptionist. _What was her name again? Nanao? Naru? Rukia? Wait, Rukia? That doesn't even start with an N! Oh, yeah, it's--_"Naoko-chan." Pleased that he finally remembered it, he forgot that he was standing right in front of her.

"Yes, Kiba-kun?"

Kiba stopped and thought, _Kiba…Kun? When did she start doing that? Is she sweet on me? Geez, first Temari, then Naoko. I like today._ Kiba put on a shit-eating grin and asked, as suavely as he possibly could (not very suavely at all), "When did you start calling me Kiba-kun? Is it possible that you've fallen for my charms?"

"No, Hana-san asked me to." Her answer didn't exactly thrill him (big surprise there). Kiba figured that the best way to diffuse the situation with her was to divert the topic, which he didn't get a chance to do before she spoke up again. "Kiba-kun, would you like to go to the festival with me?"

_Wow_, thought the canine ninja, _Okay, she's not into me, but asks for a date. What the hell? But I'm already kinda going with Temari. Gad, sure thing or question for the future? I can't make this choice._

_**Of course not, Kiba.**_

_What the hell was that? Is this like Sakura's Inner Personality?_

_**No, Kiba. This isn't. That young lady's Inner Self is more meddling and outgoing than most of us, so don't worry. Besides, there are things we should discuss.**_

_What the hell's going on? This is madness. Usually voices in your head are signs that you're losing it. I'm not losing it, am I?_

The 'other voice' in Kiba's head chuckled, a sound that sent chills down his spine. **_Not unless…well, I'll wait on that point. But there is some significance to my appearing now. You are in crisis, and I am here to resolve it. But that job is usually reserved for you instinct. Now, you have a crisis that cannot be resolved by it, and I appear._**

_Okay, if we've gotta discuss, then let's talk._

_**You say that as though I'm a different person. Not true, you obviously have no idea of how this works. You see, it's not as though I'm a separate entity within you, I'm just allowing a different perspective. We don't have two sets of facts, I just come to different conclusions. And I'd suggest that you say, "Only until about nine or so, because I've got some other arrangements then," when the young lady asks again.**_

_Wait, what's this 'two sets of facts' crap? When who asks? You aren't making sense. _While in his mind, Kiba heard something. Something that sounded distinctly like, "Dida, du banna go du ta hesdavil wit be?" _What the hell was that?_

_**You can't remain here any longer, go to the normal world, child. Things will fall into place**._

"Kiba-kun, you didn't answer my question," whined Naoko. If Kiba didn't know better, he thought she might have actually been sweet on him. "I said, do you want to go to the festival with me?" She look at him with a pleading look on her face. Kiba couldn't say no. Except that he had to. He was going to be with Temari that night, and he didn't want to risk it, so he declined. He never was a master at juggling women around, and he sure as hell wasn't going to start.

"Sorry, Naoko-chan, but I've got something already arranged for then. How about a rain-check?" Kiba didn't feel all that great, trouncing on somebody else's hopes for their evening like that, but sometimes that's the way it is. What surprised him, was that she didn't look all that crushed, she just stepped aside, allowing him to get to see his sister. He didn't see the tears that came down her face just moments after.

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Next time: Kiba finds out how far the rabbit hole goes, Temari catches him red pawed, Naoko gets more lines! Psychological depth! It's insanity!

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A/N: Yeah, I know I'm messing with canon. Shoot me. I know that Akamaru's the size of a Mack Truck in Naruto II, but I don't care. In this story, Akamaru stays a puppy, because if he didn't then Kiba would likely have died in chapter one, and we'd have no story. And nobody wants that. So, there, Akamaru's still his cute, chibi self and all the ladies dig him.

Secondly, if you like the story, that's cool and all, but I'd love to know what you like about it. I get about twelve people saying, "I like it" before I post it, I'd like something with more substance when somebody enjoys the story. Remember, authors love it when you guys tell us what you think, even if you hate it, and you know why you hate, that helps, too. So remember, not only are you enjoying fine fanfic fiction, you're contributing to the growth of an author. Cause let's face it, the internet is awesome.

Thirdly, yeah, I know it's been since the dawn of freakin' time since I updated, but bare with me, college is an enourmous timesuck, and I get distracted by some of the other fanfics out there. Because they are so cool. If you want a break from my writing (because my lousy update times aren't crazy enough) you should check out some of the stuff that your favorite authors have fav'ed. It's usually some pretty good stuff.


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